1. Field of the Invention
The apparatus of the present invention applies to a novel aspect of positioning a sensing coil and more specifically to adjusting a position of a nuclear magnetic resonance surface coil located under a patient's body.
2. Prior Art
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, which is a specialized field of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), is well-known in the medical and instrumentation industry. Typically, a patient is placed on a flat surface and a surface coil is placed under a portion of the patient's body. The exact location of the placement of the surface coil is determined by the area of the body to be imaged. Then the patient and the table are placed into a bore of the NMR equipment.
However, if the core is initially placed improperly under the patient, this fact is not discovered until scanning occurs. Because the surface coil is kept physically small as possible to prevent reception of stray magnetic field signals, the precise placement of the surface coil under the patient is crucial. When improper placement occurs, the patient must be removed from the bore, the surface coil readjusted and the patient is reinserted for NMR scanning. This process will be repeated until desired placement of the surface coil is obtained.
Therefore, an improved device is needed which requires a simpler and less time consuming method to adjust the position of the scanning coil without repeated removal of the patient from the NMR equipment.